Chapter XI
JESUS THE INCARNATION
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."* 'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me."'
" Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead." ° At the Baptism of Jesus a voice was heard which declared that He was the beloved Son in whom God was pleased.
Jesus understood from this that He was the Son of God.
The account of His temptation shows us that He knew that He was the Son of God.'
The demoniacs who saw Him called Him the Son of God and He sought to silence them.
About halfway through His ministry in the city called Caesarea Philippi He asked the disciples the question: 'Who do men say that 1am?"
He followed it up with a more personal and searching question, " Who do ye say that I am?" and Simon
Peter said, "' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." *° To understand the meaning of Peter's words we must know something of the hopes and expectations of the Jews at the time of Jesus.
They are briefly described in the first few pages of Chapter XI.
There were two hopes.
One was the hope of a righteous earthly King who would govern Jerusalem with justice and equity, and the other was of the celestial being who would come down from heaven with power, bring to end the present evil age and inaugurate a new heavenly era.
There was no hard and fast distinction between these two hopes.
Some held one, some held the other and a few held both.
Jesus altered these hopes completely.
He said that He was the long-expected Christ, but that His path was not the path of glory but the path of the Cross.
He was the Suffering Servant of the Lord.
He was going to establish a spiritual Kingdom by His Death and Resurrection.
This was not what the Jews expected.
They expected either a glorious worldly Kingdom or a glorious spiritual Kingdom.
In either case Christ would be ruler and judge, not a Suffering Servant.
These then are the claims of Jesus as we find them recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.
These claims are even stronger in the Gospel of St. John.
In addition to the claims already mentioned, Jesus makes in the Fourth Gospel two further claims.
He claims ° Matthew xi. 28, 29.
™Matthew x. 37.
® Matthew viii. 22.
® Matthew iv. I-11.
° Matthew: xvi. 13-20.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
to have existed long before His life on this earth.
He says:
"' Before Abraham was, I am." * In other words He claims to be an Eternal Being. He also says: "I and the Father are one." 1?
This again is a remarkable claim.
He asserts that there is complete. identity between Himself and God in feeling, will and thought.** We must seriously consider these claims of Jesus.
We have seen that His was an extraordinarily pure and noble life.
He Himself laid the utmost emphasis on the need for speaking truth, and His whole life was an evidence of the purity of His character.
When He made these claims He spoke the truth and was quite sincere in what He said.
He had no intention of misleading His contemporaries. Such an idea would have been entirely repellent to His pure and truthful nature.
We must therefore pay due weight to these claims.
If a person as unique and as lofty as Jesus made such claims on his own behalf, they cannot be ignored or easily Jaid aside.
It is not likely that Jesus, who led such a noble life and who possessed such extraordinary spiritual powers, would have made these claims if there was no support for them.
So we must conclude that Jesus had a unique relation to God.
He was not like other men.
He had come into the world to reveal God as men did not know Him but only He knew God.
The Experience of the Church But it may be said that Jesus might not have wanted to mislead people, but He might have been misled Himself.
Sincere and devoted as He was, He might have thought that He was the Son of God, that men should come to Him and accept Him and that He would reveal the Father to them.
These claims are entirely confirmed by the experience of the Christian Church through the centuries.
Millions of men have taken Him at His word and have found Him to be the Incarnation of God.
The greatest of these was St. Paul.
He was a spiritual giant.
He had been a university student at Tarsus and had received a full training in Jewish Theology.
He hated Jesus and all those who followed Him.
But on the road to Damascus, where he went to persecute the Christians, he had a vision of Jesus, the first of his mystical experiences as far as we know.
Much to the surprise of all those who knew him, the whole course of his life was suddenly changed.
He who had hated Christians now * John. viii. 58.
* John x. 30.
* See Chapter II for a discussion of "I and the Father are one."
JESUS THE INCARNATION
_ became a zealous Christian himself.
He spent considerable time in Arabia probably in solitary meditation and prayer and came out of his retirement with a rich and new understanding of Christ.
This understanding grew with the years as we know from the Epistles which he wrote during the different periods of his life. He combined in himself the varied gifts of a theologian, mystic and practical worker.
His motto was, "I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." ?* His whole life was centred in Christ.
Countless other people, simple and learned, poor and rich, young and old, men and women from all the nations of the world, through the ages have accepted Christ as the Incarnation of God. They have accepted His revelation of the Father as final and full.
They have taken His ideals as the standard of their conduct.
They have claimed God's forgiveness in the name of Christ and they have experienced a sense of complete release from the burden of their guilt.
They have come close to God because of Jesus.
They have enjoyed His Presence and tried to impress upon others something of the enduring joys of such fellowship.
And in every case they have found the claims of Jesus true.
They have found that He is what He declared Himself to be, the Son of Man, with a unique relation to the Father and with a unique knowledge of the Father, and that He has come to the world to save men from their sins and to take them back to the feet of God.
Thousands of out-caste Christians in India, for instance, are now saying in the words of Ravi Das, a leather worker at Benares in the fifteenth century who had experienced the love of God :
"Who but my precious Lord so low would stoop, Merciful towards the poorest?
Yet Lord of all the Earth, Over my head his shelter spreading; _ Even on him a blessing shedding Whose hand still pollutes whate'er he touches.
He exalteth on high the meek and the lowly, He feareth noman: My Lord!
My Lord!" ** The claims of Jesus then cannot be easily ignored.
The Hindu Doctrine of " Avatara"
For a long time in India many of the Hindu sects have * Galatians ii. 20.
; ; RT. Gribble, Mystic Lyrics from the Indian Middle Ages, p. 67.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
"believed in Avataras.
The earliest statement we have about Avataras is found in the Bhagavad Gita which is nearly as old as the Christian era.
Warious developments of the doctrine have taken place.
The main lines of these developments may be set down here.
An Avatara is God Himself who has come down to the earth; he is not merely a holy man who has raised himself up spiritually.
There have been many men in the world who have shown extraordinary devotion and piety but none of them is an Incarnation.
A devout man can never rise to be an Incarnation, but God comes down into a human being and thereby makes him an Incarnation.
Once Ramakrishna.Paramahamsa was asked :
" What is the difference between a holy sage and an incarnation of God whois called the Saviour of mankind?"
He answered :
'* A holy sage is one who has realized God through great, pain, long prayers and severe penances and after much trouble has saved himself from the attractions of the world, but he has not the power to save others; while a Saviour is one who can easily save hundreds without losing his own spirituality.
A holy sage may be compared to'a reed floating in the ocean of life, which cannot bear the weight of even a crow, but when a Saviour descends He easily carries thousands across the ocean like a large, powerful steamer which moves swiftly over the waters." *°
2. God is invisible. He is a Spirit, and cannot be easily understood by us.
He is so far above our thought and feeling that we cannot adequately comprehend Him.
His love, goodness, power and majesty are beyond our grasp. We are small creatures used to the things of this world which we see and hear and feel and touch and taste.
Whatever comes before our senses we understand, but anything beyond we do not seem to know clearly.
We have striven for God through the ages in different countries.
We have worshipped Him as earnestly as we could.
We have read diligently the books which devout and spiritual men have written, but we are not satisfied.
Our minds are puzzled by the innumerable doctrines which have been taught and our hearts remain cold and hungry.
We seem to be groping in the dark.
The clearness of understanding which is necessary for genuine prayer is lacking.
We do not seem really to know who God is and what He does.
Therefore to satisfy these deep longings of human souls, God takes birth asa man.
He lives in this world as one of us so that we can see His face and hear His teaching.
* Swami Abhedananda, Divine Heritage of Man, p. 161.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
He passes through the same experiences as we do.
If He teaches anything we are sure that He understands our difficulties, for He has lived the same life as we have.
This belief that nothing less than a Divine Incarnation can satisfy real human needs is often found set forth in the Ramdyana of Tulsidas. A devotee approaches a saint and asks him for instruction about the worship of an incarnate God.
The devotee speaks:
" Being himself a philosopher devoted to the mystery of the transcendental, and thinking that I had fully mastered the subject, he began a sermon on Brahm, the unbegotten, the indivisible, the immaterial, the sovereign of the heart ; unchangeable, unwishful, nameless, formless; approachable only by analogy, indestructible, incomparable; beyond the reach of thought or sense, spotless, immortal, emotionless, illimitable, blessed for ever; identical with yourself, you and he being as absolutely one as a wave and its water; so the Vedas declare.
The saint gave me the fullest possible instruction, but the worship of the impersonal laid no hold on my heart.
Again I cried, bowing my head at his feet:
'Tell me, holy father, how to worship the Incarnate.
Devotion to Rama, oh wisest of sages, is like the element of water, and my soul—which is, as it were, a fish—how can it exist without it? Of your mercy so instruct me that I may see Rama with my own eyes.
When I have seen my fill of the Lord of Avadh, then I will listen to your sermon on the unembodied.'
Again the saint discoursed of the incomparable Hari, and demolishing the dogma of the Incarnation, expounded him as altogether passionless.
But I rejected the theory of the abstract, and with much obstinacy insisted upon his concrete manifestation." ** The doctrine of Incarnation in India seems to have arisen as a protest against the theory that God is impersonal (Nirguna), having no qualities or attributes.
The impersonal nature of Brahman is expounded in most of the Upanishads.
The Bhagavad Gita voices a protest against it with its doctrine of Incarnation and Bhakti.
The doctrine of an Incarnation is necessary for those who believe in a personal (Saguna) God as well.
Without an Incarnation, even His nature does not become clear to men.
It is only when He becomes incarnate and lives in the world as a man that we can really come to know Him.
God becomes incarnate because of the love He has for men.
I once heard Walker of Tinnevelly give an effective "FH. Growse, The Ramayana of Tulisdas, p. 94.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
evangelistic address in Tamil.
His subject was "The Divine Incarnation" and as his text he took a couplet from Tayumanavar, the Tamil poet :
"Thou hast multiplied thy love and come to protect my precious life !
Thou ocean of joy! Thou King! Thou who art highly exalted!" ** This immediately held the attention of the audience. Many of the Hindus present knew this beautiful stanza and understood its finely-expressed meaning.
They all knew the name of Tayumanavar and had a great respect for him as a genuine devotee.
He lived in the eighteenth century.
We do not know whether he was influenced by Christian ideas; there are no traces of distinctively Christian doctrines in his poetry.
This insight had apparently come to him independently or from earlier Bhakti poets whose writings he had read.
Many saints in India, besides Tayumanavar, have recognized that God is Love and comes down to the world as an Incarnation to help men.
We read in the Ramayana of Tulsidas:
'There is one God, passionless, formless, uncreated,, the universal soul, the supreme spirit, the all-pervading, whose shadow is the world; who has become incarnate and does many things, only for the love he bears to his faithful people." *®
Another verse says:
"From the love that he bore his followers, Rama took the form of a man, and by himself enduring misery secured their happiness." *° 4.
God becomes incarnate from His own free-will.
There is nothing to compel Him to come down to the earth and to live the life of aman.
He is not bound by outside circumstances as we are.
He is a self-existing and independent Reality.
There is no force that could control Him, no person that could order Him about, no external fact that could determine His movements.
Such is His perfect independence.
He of His own free will becomes incarnate.
This thought is frequently found in the Ramayana of Tulsidas.
"This Rama, omnipresent Brahm, Lord of the Universe, and of Maya, the gem of the house of Raghu, has become incarnate of his own free-will, for the sake of his worshippers.
Voluntarily assuming human guise, I will manifest myself in * Tayumanavar, " Anbai Peruki."
* F. S. Growse, The Ramayana of Tulsidds, p. 21.
* Ibid., p. 12.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
your house, father, and with the elements of my divinity incarnate, will do good deeds for the consolation of my people.
He who is beyond all form, or quality or perception of the senses, took birth as a man in a body formed at his own will." *
The purpose of an Incarnation is to help men.
The classic statement is found in the Bhagavad Gita.
Krishna says:
"" Whenever there is a decline of Law, O Arjuna, and an outbreak of lawlessness I incarnate myself.
For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of the Law I am born from age to age."
Ramanuja makes a fine comment on this verse:
'' The good "set out to attain me and as my name, work and form are beyond speech. and thought, fail to see me and can scarcely live or eat.
A moment so spent is like millions of years to them.
And their whole body becomes thoroughly enfeebled.
To save them, I, therefore, grant them a vision of my form and work, hold converse with them and destroy those who are in opposition to them.' " ?° Kalidasa says :
"' Yourself immeasurable, you have measured the world; seeking nothing yourself, you grant all requests; yourself unvanquished, you are ever victorious; yourself imperceptible, you are the cause of the perceptible world.
Omniscient, you are unknown by any; self-born, you are the origin of everything; Lord of everything, you have no _ master; single, you are of the form of everything.
To those souls, rid of all passion, whose minds are possessed of you and who have dedicated all their acts to you, you are the means to that salvation from which there is no return.
Like the gems of the Ocean, and the splendours of the sun, your glories exceed all praise.
There is nothing unobtained which you have to obtain; the welfare of the world is the sole reason for your incarnations and acts.
If after praising your greatness we become silent, it is because of fatigue or incapacity (to praise you), not because your glories have been exhausted." ** ™ Divine Incarnation as found in the Ramayana of Tulsidas (C.LS.), pel Ost
in hagavad Gita, iv. 7, 8, translated by D. S. Sarma, The Bhagavad Gita, p9!.
*8 Gita Bhashya, iv. 8.
4 Kalidasa, Raghuvamsa, x., translated by V. Raghavan, Prayers, Pratses and Psalms, pp. 195-197.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
The Bhagavata Purana says :
, " That Lord without any bound, who is bereft of name as well as form, but still assumes by His births and acts names and forms for blessing those who seek His feet—may that Supreme Being become gracious unto me." "° We need not take seriously the idea that of the Incarnations
~ commonly attributed to Vishnu, the first three are of animal shape—the fish, the tortoise and the boar—that the fourth has an intermediate form, with a man's body and a lion's head and that the fifth is that of a dwarf and stands for deformed humanity.
Modern Hindu writers have seen a gradual progress of thought here.
To believe that God took an animal shape or a semi-animal shape belongs to the early forms of religion and all scholars are agreed in thinking that men's beliefs are at first crude and primitive and then only gradually become more spiritual and elevated.
In all religions there are traces of such primitive beliefs lingering on.
The idea that God appeared in the world in the form of certain animals is an ancient belief of this type and should be simply left behind as people advance spiritually.
It must be said that while the Hindu books always mention these animal and semi-animal Incarnations, no modern
Hindu really believes them to-day.
The belief in Divine Incarnation in animal and semi-animal forms cannot be considered as a part of the working faith of any educated Hindu at present.
The Christian Doctrine of " Avatara"
It will be seen that fundamentally the Hindu doctrine of Avatara is akin to the Christian doctrine of Incarnation.
As a matter of fact in the different languages of India the only word that can possibly be used to translate the term '' Incarnation " is Avatara.
Every Christian book in the vernacular uses the word " Avatara" to describe the Incarnation of Jesus.
When speaking of Jesus as Avatdra, however, several important points should be borne in mind.
It is sometimes held in India that an Incarnation is a human embodiment of an Amsa or part of God.
In the Ramdyana we read that the king Dasaratha, who had no children, made a sacrifice to obtain issue.
The God Vishnu answered his prayer and handed over to him a pot of nectar with the instruction that Dasaratha's three wives should drink of this nectar.
Half the contents of the pot was given to Kausalya and she gave birth * Bhagavata Purana, vi, iv. 33, translated by V. Raghavan, Prayers, Praises and Psalms, p. 127.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
to Rama and in him half of the divine essence became incarnate.
Kaikeyi was given a quarter and her son Bharata became an embodiment of a fourth part of the divine essence.
Sumitra was given the remaining portion and twins were born of her, Lakshmana and Satrughna.
In each of these twins one eighth of the divine essence resided.
Generally only one Incarnation, that of Vishnu as Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, is regarded as full and complete (Purna).
But even He is sometimes spoken of in the Bhagavata Purana as a partial and imperfect Incarnation.
This idea that the Divine Being can be divided off into fractions or portions is certainly a crude one.
It is entirely opposed to the idea of God as Spirit.
Only what is physical can be broken up into parts; Spirit cannot be thus split.
That God is a Spirit and cannot be divided (Akhanda) is accepted in Hindu Philosophy.
The doctrine that God cannot be partitioned off is a cardinal tenet of the Advaita Vedanta.
We read in the Gospel of St. John that God is Spirit; He is all-pervasive ; there is nothing physical about Him; He cannot be broken up into parts.
When we speak of Jesus as an Avatadra of God we do not mean that He is an Incarnation of only an Amsa or part of God. We mean that He is an Incarnation of the whole Being of God. As a New Testament writer says:
" the fulness of God had dwelt in him bodily." 7° The purpose of an Incarnation is variously stated in the Hindu books.
Many of the occasions on which God is supposed to have become manifest are trivial and some are even unethical.
An Incarnation is believed to have taken place to destroy a demon, to overthrow a persecuting king, to protect the Brahman caste, to deliver a devotee from a small trouble or to give a boon.
These need not be taken seriously.
They belong to the mythological side of Hinduism.
The Puranic stories which describe such Incarnations embody the beliefs and ideas of Hindus on a primitive level of development.
The noblest statement of the purpose of an Incarnation is found in the Gita in the passage already quoted.
"For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of the Law I am born from age to'age."
It should be noted that even this highest and noblest declaration of the purpose of an Incarnation falls short of the object
* Colossians ii. 9.
*" Bhagavad Gita, iv. 8, translated by D. S. Sarma, The Bhagavad Gita, Dp: Qt:
: s
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
for which Jesus declared that He came to the world.
He was born on this earth in order to redeem sinners and not to destroy them.
He clearly said that His purpose was not to call the righteous for they needed no help, but to call sinners to repentance.
It was characteristic of Jesus that He should have sought to establish righteousness (Dharma) in the world, not by helping those who were already good and by eliminating the wicked but by giving ney life to the wicked and directing their energy into better channels.
His idea was that the worse people were, the more they needed His help.
That is why He went out of His way to win sinners.
There is a further important point in which the Hindu doctrine of Incarnation falls short of the Christian idea.
As this passage declared, God is believed to come to birth age after age.
This belief has really been most popular in India.
The Hindus believe that God comes again and again into this world to help men.
There is a tendency to regard every holy man as a likely Incarnation of God. : In our own generation Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has been regarded as an Incarnation of God.
Swami Abhedananda, a leading Sannydsi of the Ramakrishna mission, says:
'The latest divine incarnation was one who appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century.
He lived near Calcutta and his name was Ramakrishna.
He is to-day worshipped by thousands of educated Hindus just in the same way as Jesus the Christ is adored and. worshipped in Christendom.
From his childhood he showed his divine power and set an example of absolute purity and divine spirituality, like an enibodiment of those blessed qualities which adorned the characters of previous incarnations, such as Krishna, Buddha, or Jesus, the Christ.
Those who had the good fortune to see and be with him even for a short time, had their eyes opened to the truth that he was absolutely superhuman.
Although he had received no school education, his wisdom was vast.
He was the storehouse, as it were, of unlimited knowledge, and he showed at every moment of his life that he was the absolute master of his mind, body and senses, that he was entirely free from all the conditions that make an ordinary mortal a slave to passions and desires.
He was like the personification of the Sermon on the Mount.
No one could ever find the slightest flaw in his noble and divine character." 7° Responsible Hindu leaders like Mr. C. Rajagopalachariar,
* Swami Abhedananda, Divine Heritage of Man, p. 160.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
sometime Premier of Madras, speak of Mahatma Gandhi as akin to the gods and as not being a mere man.""
Here is a prayer addressed to Sri Aurobindo, the paodent Hindu leader:
"Sri Aurobindo, your name is our Mantra; your word is our scripture; your presence is our only hope; you are our saviour; you alone have the power to restore humanity to divinity, to bring peace and harmony here.
To serve thee is our salvation.
Give us that lofty faith and. pure surrender by which alone we can deserve to be thy humble servants.
Your victory is India's victory, Earth's victory, Spirit's victory.
Thy Presence reveals to us the truth of the Vedic utterance:
' Hear ye, children of immortality, and ye who reside in higher planes!
I have known this Mighty Purusha effulgent as the sun, beyond all darkness.
By knowing him alone thou shalt transcend death.
For this spiritual Freedom in immortality no other path LS Cie ae ee The doctrine of many Avatdaras constantly tends to the deifica~tion of every holy man in India.
That is one reason why we. find such a multitude of gods and shrines in this country.
This is an important point on which we differ from Hindus.
We believe that Jesus was the Avatara.
God lived on the earth as a man only once and that was as Jesus.
We do not regard that there were several Incarnations in the world and that Jesus was one among them.
We firmly hold that Jesus was the one and only Avatara.
But it may be asked, " Why should Jesus alone be considered as the Avatara?"' In these chapters we have been studying Jesus, His noble teaching, His matchless life, His unparalleled suffering and His wonderful Resurrection.
And we have come to the conclusion that He was an Incarnation of God.
There is no inherent improbability in God becoming incarnate more than once.
If God becomes incarnate once He might become incarnate on other occasions as well. But has He actually done so?
It is our firm Christian belief that among all the great religious figures in the world there is no one except Jesus who could be regarded as an Incarnation of God.
With the Christian the question of calling other religious leaders Incarnations does not seriously arise, for, however sympathetically he may study their teaching and revere their lives, he is not drawn to them ashe is to Jesus.
In this matter finally each one has to decide for himself.
I have honestly, sincerely and prayerfully tried to understand what * The Sunday Observer, Madras, May 2, 1939.
" The Sunday Times, Madras, November 26, 1939.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
the great religious leaders have done.
Asa result of such devout study and genuine experience I have come to the conclusion that there is no one in the world like Jesus who could bring me close to God.
I hope I have not been merely prejudiced.
I hope I have examined most carefully and most earnestly the foundations of my belief.
I hope I have not wilfully misunderstood the life and work of the other great religious leaders of the world such as Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Mohammed, Zoroaster and Confucius.
I can only speak for myself.
I can also urge others to study sincerely the life and work of the great religious leaders of mankind and come to an independent conclusion as to who may be regarded as the Avatara and to worship
Him as such.
Dr. R. E. Hume of Union Theological Seminary, New York city, has made, to use his own words, "an intensive study of the sacred Scriptures of the various religions."
He says:
"I would testify that the study of the various religions has produced a greater confidence in the unequalled religious value of the Christian Bible and especially in the supremacy of Jesus Christ.
There are three points in which I cannot induce any parallel from the history of the other religions, namely, the character of 'Jesus Christ Himself, the character of God as revealed by Jesus
Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit as assured by Jesus Christ." * If Jesus is the Incarnation of God He must be our guide in all religious matters.
On all doubtful points we must turn to Him and seek His direction.
He does not say that there will be other Incarnations after Him, but He says that the Spirit of Truth will guide men into all truth.
" But now I go unto him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?
But because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.
And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgement, because the prince of this world hath been judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear,
* Dnydnddaya, November 23, 1939.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.
All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you. A little while, and ye behold me no more; and again a little while, and ye shall see me." *
In brief, the teaching of Jesus is that the human need for an Incarnation has been met by Himself.
In other ages people would still need divine guidance.
They would be perplexed and troubled; they would struggle with sins and temptations; they would realize the barriers to fellowship with God.
To such God will give the help they need by His Indwelling Spirit.
He will not leave them alone, to struggle and strive as best as they may.
But He will make their heart His dwelling place and from there strengthen their weak and limited: powers.
The Indwelling Spirit of God will teach men their duty and will also enable them to perform it.
Hindu Criticism of the Doctrine of Incarnation Once when a lecture was given to educated Hindus on " The Incarnation," a Saiva Siddhanta scholar gave a lecture after two or three days in the same town on " Theophany." He maintained that the Christian belief in the Incarnation was wrong.
God never becomes incarnate. Whenever His devotees are in need He appears to them and helps them and then vanishes out of sight.
A well-known story of such a Divine Appearance is connected with Manikkavacakar. He was a Prime Minister in an important kingdom in South India.
He was worldly-minded and lived without any thought of God or religion.
The king asked him to buy some horses and gave him money for the purpose.
Manikkavacakar left on this errand and as he was journeying along he saw under the shade of a large tree a venerable looking Guru seated in the midst of a large group of disciples.
From curiosity he joined the group and listened to the Guru's teaching. Immediately a wonderful change took place in his heart.
He was no longer a worldly man interested in making money and in enjoying life.
A passion for God awoke in him and he became a true Bhakta.
He gave up his appointment as Prime Minister, and devoted the rest of his life to the spiritual quest.
He wandered from shrine to shrine singing the praises of the God Siva.
His lyrics, which are all in Tamil, have been gathered together under ? John xvi. 5-16.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
the title of Tiruvacakam.
This book is most popular in the Tamil country and the excellent English translation made by Dr. G. U. Pope has made it known all over the world.
Manikkavacakar believed that it was the god Siva who appeared to him as a Guru and utterly changed his life.
Again and again Manikkavacakar praised the love of Siva which made him call 'himself, when he was absorbed in the world, to leave it and to follow him fully.
The Saiva Siddhanta idea is that God only appears in the world to help men.
He is not born as a child; He does not grow gradually through the various experiences of boyhood into manhood.
He does not possess a physical body for a period of years and use it as an instrument for the achievement of His purposes.
To suppose that He does all this would not be in 'keeping with His dignity as God.
In the Christian Church too there were some thinkers known as the Docetists who held that the body of Jesus was not real.
He was not born like other men and He did not grow like them.
He had only a phantom body.
When the First Epistle of St. John was written about the end of the first or the beginning of the second century after Christ, these thinkers had already arisen.
St. John therefore refuted their doctrines and described Jesus as "' That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness)." *° It is surprising that the Sava Siddhanta takes up such a position.
It believes fully in a God of Love.
It also believes that this God of Love, out of His boundless compassion, comes to the world to help His devotees.
But it does not go further.
The Christian belief is that love goes further.
God identified Himself entirely with men.
He was born as a child.
He experienced the joys and sorrows of youth.
He grew in wisdom and in knowledge.
He was obedient to His parents.
He worked at the trade of a carpenter like His father.
He was thirsty.
He was tired and needed rest like others.
In brief, He was a real human being.
He lived in the world as we do and He knew from inside all the difficulties and struggles of men.
His complete identification with men has brought Him very close to us.
We feel that He is one of us.
We know that what He speaks comes from His own experience in this world as it is. He moved
* y John i. 1, 2.
JESUS THE INCARNATION
among all sorts and conditions of men—religious leaders, government officials, fishermen and prostitutes.
His contacts with people were wide and His knowledge of life real.
The Advaita Vedanta also criticizes the doctrine of Incarnation.
According to this philosophy God alone is real and everything else is unreal.
The world is unreal; history is unreal; men are unreal; God is the Eternal Spirit.
He is everywhere and at all times.
We cannot say that He was born as a man in a particular country or at a certain time.
That would be to limit Him.
God the Infinite Spirit cannot be thus limited.
Echoing a common Advaita sentiment, Swami Asheshananda says: "To the Hindus the historicity of Christ is not of much concern.
For they always care more for the principle than for the personality.
The eternal message matters more than the events of a life.
Many of the Upanishadic seers died unknown and are a voice without a form.
No record has been left to posterity to trace the heritage of the brilliant authors and composers of the Vedic hymns which have come down to us across scores of shining centuries.
Complete self-effacement was the motto of their life. They did never seek for honours or applause from the crowd, as their minds were saturated with loftier ideals relating to the eternal verities.
. Knowledge of historical veracity is not the last word and acme of true spirituality.
A Buddha or a Mohammed may or may not have lived, but that does not deter an earnest votary from conforming to the ideal and assimilating the principles, the realization of which would alone confer lasting fellowship and supreme beatitude.
In this respect a suggestion given by Ramakrishna is highly significant :
' Whether,' he says, ' Christ or Krishna lived or not is immaterial ; the people from whose brain the Christ ideal, or Krishna ideal, has emanated did actually live as Christ or Krishna for the time being.'
It requires a Christ to forge a Christ.
Krishna may be a mythical figure, but the thinkers who contemplated such an idea and conjured up such an image were as great and noble as the Krishna they conceived." "
This doctrine is quite contrary to Christian belief which holds that the world is real.
God has created the world and all that is in it. He has given us a body so that we may live and move in the world.
The Spirit can only progress with the help of the body.
It learns to think, to feel, to aspire and to do, using the body as its instrument.
* The International Review of Missions, April 1939, p. 259.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
The Advaitin must remember that whatever his philosophy may be, he lives in the world and moves with other people.
He knows that he has a history behind him.
He has gradually grown.
Slowly and in course of time his character has been formed.
Various influences have been at work through a period of several years moulding his character.
What he is to-day is the result of what he has experienced and felt and thought during the years.
The past does count and must bear the responsibility for having made him what he is.
In the same way other individuals have grown better or worse.
Their characters have become finer or have deteriorated; their mental powers have become richer or poorer; their capacity for enjoyment has become wider or narrower.
And all this has happened by the influences which have played upon them through the years, the growth or deterioration of the body, the: new sights which they have seen or not seen, the people they have met or failed to meet, the experiences they have undergone. or not undergone.
In other words, all individuals are becoming better or worse in course of time.
The same with nations.
Gradually nations grow, passing through many changes.
They explore new territories, meet new peoples and see new ideals.
That is why we study history.
We are anxious to know how individuals and nations develop gradually through the years.
If the world has no meaning, if life has no purpose, if the passage of time has no significance, we need not bother with the study of history. We need not dig up ancient cities and study the remains of old civilizations.
We need not take the trouble to understand forgotten languages in order to read old books and see what men thought and felt in those days.
The world has a meaning and the events which take place in it have a purpose.
So when God enters the world as a man and works in it at a particular time, He is doing something which is purposeful, not something which is meaningless.
APPENDIX
OUR SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT JESUS
THE main sources of our information about Jesus are the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John.
For over a hundred years Christian scholars have been studying carefully these four Gospels as well as the other books of the Bible and they have come to some important conclusions about them.
We should know what their conclusions are.
Most of these scholars have been earnest Christians who have really sought to understand the Bible; they have spent days and nights in studying the Bible verse by verse.
If there are different accounts of the same event, as there often are in the Gospels, they have compared them carefully, found out where they agree and where they differ and why.
They have checked the information given in the Gospels by the facts which have come to light through archaeology. They have tried to understand how the manuscripts were originally written, where they are found now, and when they were first put into print.
If several manuscripts of the same book exist, they have examined them all to find out whether the wording in all the manuscripts is exactly the same and if there are differences they have given various explanations.
As a result of all this minute and careful study we are now in a position to understand the Bible much better.
Christ left this earth about a.p. 30.
At the time there was not a single book either by Him or about Him.
But His disciples, afterwards known as the Apostles, treasured in their hearts the sayings which they had heard from His lips. They also remembered with pious devotion all the wonderful things which He had done while alive.
They used His sayings and the accounts of His deeds constantly in their preaching.
As there were twelve disciples and a great many others who had followed Him during His life, there was a large body of His sayings and of stories about Him which His disciples and friends told others either in personal conversation or in the course of their preaching.
Some of these sayings and stories were later written out and probably circulated asa manuscript.
This was never printed, and we have no copy of the manuscript now; but the writers of the Gospels quoted from it; itis called '' Q " from the German word, quelle,
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
which means source.
We think that it existed because there are several sayings of Christ which are reported exactly in the same words in the different Gospels; such sayings with the same words could only have come from a common source.
; St. Paul was an orthodox Jew. He was not one of the immediate disciples of Jesus.
He hated the followers of Christ and persecuted them.
But he saw a vision of Christ and immediately became His disciple.
With great zeal he began to preach Christ and when hundreds of people became the followers of Christ he formed them into churches.
He wrote letters to these churches telling them what he considered to be the essential Christian
Faith.
These letters, known as the Epistles of St. Paul, were written between A.D. 48 and 59.
These were the first books which were written and circulated about the Christian Faith.
They were mainly explanations of Christian experience and' doctrine and were not the biographies of Jesus.
Though they were not biographies of Jesus they frequently referred to Jesus and spoke about Him. Even if no other books about Jesus were available we would know from the Epistles of St. Paul that Jesus lived, taught some wonderful truths, died on the Cross and rose again from the dead.
The first actual biography of Jesus was written by St. Mark, probably about a.p. 65.
St. Mark got his information from -St. Peter.
Though quite short, St. Mark's Gospel is vivid in its style of writing.
The Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew, which were written after St. Mark, used his narrative at different points.
They all quoted some sayings from the document " Q."
St. Luke wrote his Gospel about a.p. 80 and St. Matthew wrote his about a.p. 81 to 85.
St. Luke, a well-trained doctor, was a close companion of St. Paul and must have had access to a great many of the reliable and authentic sources of information about Jesus.
St. Matthew, a former publican and one of 'the twelve disciples, had himself come in contact with Jesus and probably furnished some of the material in the Gospel bearing his name.
Biblical scholars have pointed out that in every land if a saint dies, stories about him soon begin to gather.
Books written about him during his lifetime or immediately after his death are fairly accurate; they tell about him as he actually lived and taught.
But in course of time stories begin to be told about the miracles he worked, the wonderful things he did as a child, his rare saintliness and soon.
Holy men are regarded by their followers as being far holier than they actually were and as having powers
APPENDIX
{such as the capacity to work miracles) which people do not ordinarily have.
In course of time these stories of exceptional gifts increase.
New interpretations of their life and work are also put forth.
In every religion there are innumerable stories of the miraculous deeds of holy men and steadily growing beliefs about them.
If we want to understand what a saint actually was and did we must study the books written about him during his lifetime or soon after it. The Gospel of St. Mark was written, as I have said, about a.p. 65. This was thirty-five years after the lifetime of Jesus.
It is not likely that during these thirty-five years a great many stories could have been invented about Jesus.
Such stories are generally made up sometime after the death of the hero.
The Gospel of St. Mark was written when many of those who knew Jesus personally were still alive ; they could have criticized it if it was not correct.
The Gospels according to St. Luke and St. Matthew were written about fifteen or twenty years after the Gospel according to St. Mark.
During this time new stories could have grown up about Jesus.
They might not have been actual facts but the pious beliefs of earnest Christians of what Jesus was likely to have taught and done.
'Therefore St. Luke and St. Matthew are not as reliable as St. Mark.
But at the same time seeing that they were also written within about fifty-five years of the lifetime of Jesus and that some of His contemporaries were probably living even then, we must regard them also as historically reliable and authoritative. Of these three Gospels, known as the Synoptic
Gospels, because they give a synoptic or unified view of their subject, the Gospel of St. Mark is the most reliable as it was the one written nearest the lifetime of Jesus.
St. Mark, St. Matthew and St. Luke were not primarily theologians.
Their task was to record some of the sayings and doings of Jesus which were in circulation among the first Christians.
They were masters in the art of writing a biography; with great skill they selected the outstanding events in the life of our Lord and described them accurately and vividly.
They sought with much care to portray Jesus exactly as He lived and taught.
This is not to say that there are no minor inconsistencies in the first three Gospels. No three witnesses who see a thing happening tell exactly alike unless they are tutored by lawyers to do so.
The very fact that there are numerous variations in detail indicates that these writers had independent sources of information and had also their own characteristic way of dealing with them.
If the three Gospels had read exactly alike, we might have had our
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
suspicions about their authenticity.
But now we find that while in the fundamental matters they are agreed, they differ in details.
This fact enables us to attach considerable weight to their more or less independent accounts.
The Gospel of St. John stands apart from the other Gospels.
There is much dispute about its authorship and the date of its writing.
Some scholars think that it was written by St. John, one of the twelve disciples of our Lord.
Other scholars think that it was the work of a:priest at Ephesus called John the Elder who probably wrote the book about A.D. 120.
In the uncertainty of our knowledge all we can say is that it was written by someone called John who lived about the end of the first century or the beginning of the second.
There are many differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel.
In the Synoptic Gospels only gradually the divine character of Jesus is revealed; little by little the disciples realize that Jesus is not man but God.
But in the Fourth Gospel even in the introduction the divine character of Jesus is made clear; He is not man; He is the Word of God become flesh.
In other words, in the Gospel according to St. John, the meaning of the life and death of Jesus is worked out more fully than in the other Gospels.
There is far more philosophy and theology in St. John's Gospel than in the first three Gospels.
St. Mark, St. Luke and St. Matthew wrote biographies of Jesus telling briefly what He did and what He taught; St. John explains the meaning of His life and death.
Scholars are not at all agreed about the historical value of the Gospel according to St. John. Some think that as it was written so late it cannot be considered an accurate life of Jesus.
We cannot accept this conclusion, though it is quite likely that the first three Evangelists give more accurately the sayings of Jesus.
While many of the discourses in the Fourth Gospel contain thoughts and words which are not found in the other Gospels, some of the sayings in the other Gospels are exactly like those in the Fourth Gospel.
For instance, the verse " All things have been delivered unto me of my Father:
And no one knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him " occurs in the Gospel of St. Matthew and a very similar verse is found in the Gospel of St. Luke.'
It will be noted that this verse sets forth a thought which is developed at great length in the * Matthew xi. 27 and Luke x. 22.
APPENDIX
discourses of the Fourth Gospel.
As this verse is found in St. Matthew and St. Luke, we can say that it was actually spoken by Jesus.
Probably the author of the Fourth Gospel took some sayings like this and developed them into the discourses in St. John.
St. John had a far deeper mind than the other Evangelists.
He was by nature able to understand the teaching of Jesus a great deal better than the others.
He had, moreover, a welltrained intellect and was familiar with the philosophy of the Greeks and of the Hebrews.
He had a rare capacity for meditation and had thought much over the sayings of Jesus. When he began to write a life of Jesus, he not merely put down what Jesus actually said but his own understanding of it.
The sayings of Jesus and the comments of the Evangelist are both closely woven together and it is often difficult to separate the one from the other; we do not know where the teaching of Jesus ends, and where the commentary of the Evangelist. begins.
I have used in this book a great deal of material from the Gospel of St. John. I realize that as an historical writer St. John is not as reliable as the other three Evangelists.
But I am convinced that he is a deeply spiritual writer.
He understands thoroughly the mind of Jesus.
We may safely follow his guidance, quite sure that he is giving us a correct understanding of our Lord's teaching and life.
I may note here in passing that the Gospel of St. John has been the favourite of many Indian readers of the Bible.
They have been more attracted by this book than by any other in the Old Testament or in the New.
This Gospel gives guidance on a great many problems on which Hindu thinkers and saints have sought light; its teaching meets exactly the deepest needs of India.
In it are set forth some of the greatest truths which those who desire communion with God would do well to grasp.
We find that though there is an essential unity in the Gospels, the question " Who is Jesus? " is answered by the different writers from entirely different backgrounds.
The four Evangelists who wrote the Gospels were drawn from various social and intellectual classes.
They had their individual peculiarities; they made their own characteristic response to the challenge of Christ. Their records were as diverse as their character.
They were all devoted to Jesus; to all of them He was the Supreme Lord of Life.
They did not waver or hesitate even a little in their loyalty to Him.
And yet each had his own distinctive way of describing Him, His gifts and His demands.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
One fundamental merit of the New Testament is that it contains a collection of writings by men with such different types of mind.
We owe this discovery largely to modern scholarship.
A generation or two ago, even keen students of the Bible were apt to ignore these differences and to seek a consistency where there was none.
The idea which was current then was that the whole Bible was a compact and well-knit book; each verse was coherent with all the others; there were no inconsistencies ; there were no differences of theological opinion; all the writers were equally inspired in all their utterances and all that they said was wholly true.
But, thanks to the patient researches of Biblical scholars during the last few decades, we now realize that the writers of the New Testament were individual men who understood and interpreted Christ each in his own way.
They were not all alike.
Spiritually and intellectually there were striking differences among them.
The unity of the answers which they give to this significant question '' Who is Jesus?" impresses us therefore all the more deeply.
For we, the men and women of to-day, who seek to answer this question are very different in many ways; we come from many countries.
The histories which lie behind us are different.
Our ideals and traditions are varied ; each man's temperament is peculiar to himself.
We read the Gospels with a fresh interest when we find from what utterly different backgrounds this question is dealt with and yet how a fundamental unity characterizes the different answers.
INDEX Abhedananda, Swami, 23, 25, 243 Absorption in God, 216 f.
| Aditi, 70.
Advaita, Advaitin, 7, 13, 15, 35, 149, Forgiveness, 3, 1 29, 157f.
Fox, George, 196 Gandhi, Mahatma, 43, 147f., 170 f, 151, 251, 269 Agdmas, 196 Ahimsa, 166 f.
Akhandt, 257 Alvar, Tiru Mangai, 119 Ananda, 30, 88 Andrews, C. F., 204 Appar, 10 Arjuna, 68, 76, 100 Asheshananda, Swami, 263 Atheism, 6 Aurobindo, Sri, 259 Avatdra, 23, 251 f.
Garuda Purana, 114 Gethsemane, 229 Ghose, Aurobindo, 221 Gospels, Four, 265 f.
Govinda, 180 Gowenka School,
Granthas, 12 Guru, 55 ff., 187, 247 Harijans, 199 f.
Harischandra, 239 f.
Holy Spirit, The, 74 f., 201 f.
Immortality, 244 f.
Inspiration, 81 f.
Islam, 5, 12, 18 Bai, Mira, 241 f.
Bai, Pandit Rama, 199 Bahva, 66 Benares, 11, 13, 22 Bhagavad Gita, 9, 68, 75, 100, 244, Janaka, 110 f., 243 Jesus: Christ, and Prayer, 28 f.
252, 255 Bhdgavata Purdna, 11, 85, 98, 146,
Bhakta, Bhakti, 4, 8 f., 21, 27, 39, and Race problem, 173 f. and Women, 50f., 162 f.
Death of, 223 f.
Fellowship with God, 30 f.
Ministry, 40 f.
Miracles, 51 f.
Resurrection of, 242 f.
Suffering of, 224 f.
Teaching on God, 55 f.
Teaching on Sin, 94 f.
Temptation, 34 Transfiguration, 35, 48 Fivan Mukta, 221 fnana Marga, 8f., 21 Jones, E. S., 23 f.
67, 88, 98, 119f., 134f., 145, 151, 188, 247, 253 Bihar earthquake, 118 Brahman, 7, 35, 66, 111, 216, 253 f.
Brihad - AryanyakaUpanishad, 110, 204, 243 :
Buddhism, Buddhist, 10, 18 Cave, Dr. S., 118 Chaitanya, I1 Chenchiah, Judge, 24 f., 201 Church, The, 176f., 183 f., 208 Communion, Holy, 203 f.
Communion with God, 101 f.
Cross, The, 3, 27, 69, 124 f., 218 f.
Kabir, 11, 88, 119 Kalidasa, 255 f.
Kamban, 18 Karma, 9, 21,65 f., 97f., 110 f., 125 f.
Katha Upanishad, 8 f., 74, 133, 217 f.
Keller, Helen, 140 Kingdom of God, 209 f.
Krishna, 68, 100, 263 Kurral, 18, 75, 169 f.
Dadudayal, 96 Das, Ravi, 251 Dasaratha, 256 Desika, V., 138 f.
Dharma, 21 Eternal life, 212 f., 219 f.
Lindbergh, Mrs., 139 f.
Love of God, 133 f., 141 f.
Father, Fatherhood of God, 35f., 59f.
Farquhar, J. N., 155 f.
Fellowship, 183 f.
Fellowship with God, 131 ff.
McTaggart, J. M. E., 115 Mahabharata, 42, 67, 115 Malati Madhava, 139 Manikkavacakar, 10, 98, 261 f.
INDEX / 272 Saguna, 21, 253 Saiva Siddhanta, 261 f.
Sakti, 73 Samadhi, 31 f., 66, 151 Sanctification, 86 f.
Sankara, 7, 65 f:
Sankhya, 6 Sannydst, 5, 12, 22, 49, 103, 149, 162, Marriage, 164 f.
Maya, 7, 15 Meditation, 2f., 28 Miracles, 31 f.
Monism, 7 f., 156 Motherhood of God, 70 ff.
Mukundamdla, 74 Muslims, 5, 12, 18 181, 197 Satydgrahi, 237 f., 241 Schweitzer, Dr. A., 169 Sen, Dr. I., 121 f.
Sévaka, 40 Sex questions, Siddhis, 49 Sikhism, 5 Siva, 10 Suffering Servant, 223 f., 249 f.
Syrian Church, 13 Nachiketas, 218 Nammialvar, 10, Nandanar, 240 f.
Nannil, 55 Naradiya Purdna, 68 Nature, 7 Nirguna Brahman, 65 f., 197, 253 Nish Kadma Karma, 117 Nirvikalpa Samadhi, 31 Non-violence.
See Ahimsa
162 f.
Origen, 127 f.
Outcastes, 26, 120f.
See Harijans Oxford group, 158 180, 238 19, 188f., Tagore, 89, 134 f., 146 f., Tambaram Conference, 197 f.
Tayumanavar, 254 Telepathy, 53 Temptation, The, 34, 48 f.
Theism, 8 Thiagaraja, 116 Tirumilar, 56 f.
Tiruvdcagam, 97 Tolstoi, 43 f.
Transfiguration, 34, 47 Transmigration, 112 Travancore, 13 Tukaram, 12, 42, 96, 120, 125 Tulsidas, 11, 89, 142 Pakenham-Walsh, Bp., 52 f.
Pala Padam, 112 Pannirselvam, Sir A. T., 18 Pantheism, 7 Patanjali, 53 Pattinattar, 119 Paul, St., 250 f.
Polytheism, 6 f.
Prahladha, 240 f.
Prakriti, 6 Purdnas, 53, 257 Purusha, 6, 259 Radhakrishnan, Sir S.,17f., 20, 114 f., 146, 238 f.
Raidas, 241 Ramakrishna, 134 f.
Ramakrishna Mission, 12, 22 f.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Upanishads, 35, 51, 253 Vacakar,
Varuna, o4f.
Vasishtha, 94 f.
» 149 TOs Vedanta, 23 Vireshwarananda, Swami, 23, 25 Vision of God, 2 f.
Visvamitra, 239 Vivekananda, 134f., 149 f.
90, 136, 252, 258 Ramalinga, 68, 144 Ramanuja, 11, "a5 f., 205 f., 221, 255 Ramayana (Kamban), 18 (Tulsidas), 11, 89, 253 f.
Rau, M.S., 139 Ravi Das, 251 Resurrection, 242 f.
Rethinking Christianity in India, 189, Women, 50 f., 162 f.
Yajna Purusha, 239 Yajnavalkya, 243 f.
I1Q9I, 195, 201
Rig Veda, 67, 70, 94f.
Rishis, 51, 239 Yajur Veda, 67 Yama, 218 Yoga, Yogi, 2f., 27f., 31f.
Yoga Siitras, 53 Yoga Vasishtha, 74.
Sadhu Sundar Singh, 4f., 24f., 140, 150, 199, 222, 237 PRINTED
IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY THE FAITH PRESS, LTD., LEIGHTON BUZZARD
. Bein sag ere: Vea, poek astute ew bags nn agi ok fate wf » Ce aie) Oey eee Wicks Wow ter Sas a ot RL Seepage rr Ags =\- a Mead \ her so ge pelea eee ite apa Ang ; rs 2 ies et ee ee ees fie ' oy '. 3 pig ifhos Lars esi
H5 AT Appasamy, Aiyadurai Jesudasen.
The gospel and India's heritage, by A. J. Appasamy ...
London and Madras, Society for promoting Christian knowledge; New York, The Macmillan company, 1942.
At eeta te sees "This book has been written at the request of the National Christian council in Indla with a view to translation into the chief Indian languages."
1. Christianity and other religions— Hinduism. 2 Jesus Christ— Teachings. t National Christian council of India, Burma and Ceylon. iL Title.
43-198 >) Lpprgry,of.Congress .
BR128.H5A7
CCSC/sz 34265 y
y B
seeri epee : Tat pyabivaniangepascsestense